It's hard to believe I'll be running the Boston Marathon (thank you Mike!) on Monday, April 21, 2008. It is, after all, the elite of marathons and I'm not exactly what you'd call an elite marathoner. My Bib Number is 25525. I’ll be in the second (last) wave in the last starting corral—22+. Purists will spit at me.

But you don't run a full marathon (that’s 26.2 miles long) to lose weight.

As a coach, it's unusual if a client doesn't gravitate towards at least one goal that he feels he "should" have. Typically, it's eating better, losing weight, reading more ... These are the things "society" recognizes as good things to do.

There's just one problem.

I saw an article in this morning’s USA Today (1-Nov-2007) about a Topeka-based church that is picketing the funerals of fallen service members. The paper reports,

The church routinely pickets military funerals with signs reading “Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags," saying God is punishing America for its immoral ways.

The group is planning to picket the memorial services of the seven college students who died in a North Carolina house fire, it said on its website.

I was absolutely stunned that a church group could equate an immoral America with a soldier being killed for doing his or her duty or with college students being killed in a house fire. I lost a friend in college and my cousin, Bobby, was one of the first two American civilians killed in Iraq. I can’t even begin to imagine the additional pain and suffering the immediate families of my friend and cousin (not to mention the rest of us) would have had to endure if people picketed at their funerals.